Birmingham, Ala. – A new partnership seeking to increase the number of Birmingham City School graduates enrolling in and graduating from the area’s two- and four-year postsecondary institutions was today named one of twenty cities from across the country to receive national support.

Alabama Possible, a statewide anti-poverty nonprofit organization, leads the partnership that includes, among others, the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, Birmingham City Schools, the Birmingham Education Foundation, Jefferson State Community College, Lawson State Community College, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The partnership’s long-term goals include enrolling 75 percent of Birmingham City School graduates in postsecondary education immediately following high school and for 65 percent of those students to complete a degree or earn a credential within six years of their initial enrollment.

The Birmingham partnership will provide low-income and first-generation college students with a network of resources and relationships that will equip them to overcome the economic and social barriers that prevent many students from starting and finishing college.

“Low-income students, like those who graduate from Birmingham City Schools, are among the least likely to attain the thing most likely to lift them out of poverty: a college degree or credential,” said Kristina Scott, executive director of Alabama Possible. “Our partnership’s goals include aligning support services to overcome the economic, social and psychological barriers for low-income and first-generation students to build a culture of college access and success.”

“Through our involvement with workforce development we hear regularly from employers that it is a struggle to find talent for jobs ranging from production workers to operational and business managers,” said James McCrary, vice president of Programs at the Community Foundation. “There are good jobs out there and we believe this program will help to better prepare our students for those jobs, increase their marketability and improve their earning potential. Having access to these resources will substantially impact the future of these students.”

“The pathway to a high-quality credential is not an easy one,” said Dr. Perry Ward, president of Lawson State Community College. “In preparing tomorrow’s workforce, we realize that there are sometimes substantial obstacles between student enrollment and degree completion. It becomes imperative that we use creative measures, form strong partnerships and identify specific needs to better service our students and ensure their success in the classroom and as productive citizens in society.”

The Birmingham partnership is one of two cities in Alabama that were tapped to join the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation’s community-based attainment network. The partnership in Birmingham and a second group in Mobile, led by the Mobile Area Education Foundation, were among the 20 cities named by Lumina Foundation today, bringing the total number of cities involved in Lumina Foundation’s network to 75.

Lumina Foundation’s work is designed to help communities and regions dramatically increase the number of local residents with postsecondary credentials. Lumina’s focus on community-based attainment began because of the Foundation’s recognition that community-based networks are well-suited to play a role in institutional planning and can provide the implementation and coordination that is necessary to create impact at state and federal levels in order to improve the nation’s higher education system so that it better serves students.

“Two-thirds of Americans live in or near cities. Our nation cannot meet its growing demand for citizens who have earned a postsecondary credential without meaningful community-based efforts that are tightly focused on increasing educational attainment,” said Jamie Merisotis, Lumina’s president and CEO. “We are very pleased with the way this work has unfolded. With 75 communities across the nation working to align the work of business, civic and education efforts in their local communities, greater coordination will occur, resulting in tangible benefits for students of all ages. These students in turn will become graduates who form the backbone of the future economic, social and cultural success of those communities.”

Birmingham and the other communities will work closely with Lumina and other national thought leaders to develop a customized action plan focused on reaching attainment goals to increase the percentage of high-quality credentials held by community residents. The collaborative effort connects participating cities with significant technical and planning assistance, data tools, flexible funding, and the ability to customize attainment plans that will best suit each community’s needs and the well-being of its residents. Local leaders heading up this work represent a range of sectors from higher education, to K-12, employers, human services, religious and a variety of other community-based organizations.

The overall effort connects to Goal 2025, Lumina’s national goal to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates, and other credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025. Progress toward the goal will be measured by credentials earned after high school, including certificates, associate degrees and bachelor’s degrees held by local residents. The cities selected will work with Lumina through 2016 to expand and deepen the work they have demonstrated in advancing postsecondary attainment agendas.

To view a complete list of cities participating in this work, national thought leaders assisting these cities, and to learn more about this work please click here.

About Lumina Foundation: Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses on helping to design and build an accessible, responsive and accountable higher education system while fostering a national sense of urgency for action to achieve Goal 2025. For more information, log on to: www.luminafoundation.org

Alabama Possible is a statewide 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing poverty and its root cause across Alabama. AP educates Alabamians about poverty, collaborates with colleges and faith-based institutions on poverty-reduction activities and advocates for fact-based policy decisions. AP was founded in 1993 and is based in Birmingham, AL. For more information visit www.alabamapossible.org.

March 1, the date for many colleges to begin processing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as FAFSA, is quickly approaching. While students can continue to fill out and submit their FAFSA after March 1, those who complete it before the deadline give themselves the best chance at receiving need-based financial aid from colleges and universities.

Birmingham-area high school seniors looking for help completing the FAFSA have two opportunities to do so next week through our Cash for College Alabama campaign.

If you’re a high school senior seeking financial aid, Cash for College is hosting two free FAFSA workshops. The first will take place Saturday, Feb. 21, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During that session, United Way’s VITA program along with NABA will offer free tax preparation for individuals making up to $53,000. A second workshop will be held Thursday, Feb. 26, from 6 to 8 pm. at the A.G. Gaston Boys and Girls Club.

In addition, five in-school workshops will be held before the March 1 deadline.

Cash for College is also is hosting a contest: Birmingham City High Schools are competing against one another to complete the most FAFSA forms by March 1. The school with the highest FAFSA completion will win a free Taco Bell® breakfast for the entire 12th grade.

FAFSA is a key indicator of student enrollment in college, with 90 percent of students who complete a FAFSA enrolling in college the following fall. FAFSA allows students to apply for federal financial aid, such as the $5,775 Pell Grant and other need-based aid.

Cash for College, which has hosted 24 FASFA workshops in the past month, is a collaboration among Birmingham City Schools, Alabama Possible, the Birmingham Education Foundation, AL.com, Bold Goals Coalition, and Leadership Birmingham Alumni. Cash For College aims to increase FAFSA completion from 39 percent in 2014 to 70 percent by 2020 in Birmingham City schools, and Cash for College is well on the way to meeting this year’s goal of a 15.4 percent increase. We have worked with 500 students in five Birmingham City high schools and at the YWoodlawn Family Resource Center. More than 120 adult volunteers have become part of Cash For College, volunteering their time to work with students, during the school day and after hours on FAFSA completion.

The final countdown is on. We have less than 3 days left to reach our fundraising goal.

I’m so grateful for the support we’ve received from people like you – and their faith communities – who have invested $35,893 this year. Our goal is to reach $43,000 by Wednesday night.

Nearly 900,000 of our neighbors live below the federal poverty line.

Donors like Gary Dunavant of Vestavia Hills say that if you “want to deal with poverty on the large scales we have here in Alabama, you really have to deal with the underlying causes or it will just go on and on and on.“

Blueprints builds a college-going culture through events like College Application Week and financial aid workshops.

Some of the highlights included:

* All 289 members of the Blueprints College Access Initiative‘s Class of 2014 earning admission to college and more than $6.2 million in supplementary scholarships. Our partner high schools also saw a 41 percent growth rate in Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completions from 2013 to 2014. Thank you for opening the door to postsecondary education.

* Giving more than 1,000 Alabamians a chance to understand the realities of poverty through the Community Action Poverty Simulation, which gives participants a window into the emotional toll and frustration that individuals living in poverty face. Thank you for teaching us poverty isn’t a game.

* Boosting summer lunch participation through theEnd Child Hunger in Alabama campaign by increasing the number of sites by 40 percent and serving 30 percent more meals. Thank you for ensuring 184,000 children had access to a regular source of nutrition during school breaks.

We are immensely grateful to partners like you for investing in the possibility of an Alabama without poverty. With God’s help, we have the power to make that dream a reality.

]]>http://alabamapossible.org/2014/12/9105/feed/0Blueprints’s Fall Semester Comes to a Closehttp://alabamapossible.org/2014/12/blueprintss-fall-semester-comes-to-a-close/
http://alabamapossible.org/2014/12/blueprintss-fall-semester-comes-to-a-close/#commentsMon, 22 Dec 2014 22:08:53 +0000http://alabamapossible.org/?p=9088As our students finished up exams and began their holiday break, the Blueprints team reflected on our accomplishments for fall 2014.

We’ve reached almost as many students this semester as we did over the course of the entire 2013-2014 school year. Last year, we teamed up 697 high school students with 150 college mentors. In fall 2014 alone, we have partnered with 135 college mentors from eight colleges to work with 600 students in 10 high schools across Alabama. This puts us well on our way to reaching our goal of 1,000 Blueprints students for the 2014-2015 school year.

Our impact has expanded as the number of program participants increased, new partnerships developed, and our participation in statewide college-access initiatives grew.

This fall we added two new partner schools: Ramsay High School and Loachapoka High School. All of the 9th graders at Ramsay High School and 12th graders at Loachapoka High School are now engaged in our college planning activities, such as college personality quizzes that gauge what type of college would best fit student interests, and academic planning for the remainder of high school to set students on the path to reach post-secondary education.

We also took our 9th and 11th grade participants on field trips to Troy University, Shelton State Community College, Lawson State Community College, and the University of Alabama. Our tours were led by college students who explained what unique programs and opportunities each college had to offer —from auto-mechanics, nursing, and research opportunities, to the all-you-can-eat dining halls.

The Blueprints team also took part in the Alabama State Department of Education’s College Application Week, an initiative dedicated to encouraging every high school senior to apply to college. The Blueprints team partnered with guidance counselors, administrators, teachers, and college admissions professionals during this week to set up workshops at eight high schools. In total, we worked with 485 students who submitted over 1,000 college applications. Students were seen all over our partner schools proudly wearing “I Applied to College!” buttons.

While students are enjoying their vacations, we are gearing up for another jam-packed semester. Our Cash For College campaign kicks off in Birmingham City high schools in the spring to ensure students have the resources and knowledge to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms.

Thank you to our Blueprints partner high schools and colleges for making this semester possible.

As 2015 approaches, we look forward to another great semester of growth, partnerships, and success.

Hillcrest High School 9th graders starting the day of college tours at Shelton State Community College’s Martin Campus.

Help Team Blueprints carry our successes into 2015 by joining us below:

Speaking to the slow and steady process of downtown revitalization, Don emphasized that he and his team had to be deliberative in determining the viability of a baseball team in the Southside of Birmingham. Although people from Birmingham appealed to him for the good of the community, he said, “It’s not great for the community if the business fails.”

Don said he and his sons, who co-own the team, “wanted to make and have a home we could feel comfortable in for 25 to 30 years,” and moving a baseball team, “wasn’t like moving a business where you’re in an office, where if you decide things aren’t going well…well we’ll just wait until the lease runs out and we’ll go to another office. You can’t do that.”

Don said that along with economic viability, the location had to feel safe and engage the whole community. Instrumental in the decision to move was the opening of neighboring Railroad Park.

On the basis that “great cities have great parks,” Cheryl and Urban Studio pushed the city for 20 years to make Railroad Park a reality. She said, “We looked out at this area of disinvestment and asked ‘What would happen if we brought citizens together there?’”

Seeing that the vacant space—nearly destined to serve a used car lot—“didn’t have any baggage,” Cheryl knew that Birmingham “could invent its story.”

Cheryl said, “Every place is broken if you want to start with what doesn’t work,” and challenged guests to identify what’s good and what works and rethink what’s possible for their own communities and Alabama.

After 30 minutes of conversation, guests asked the evening’s two honorees questions around replicating the successes of Regions Field and Railroad Park across the city. After each answer it became clearer that lasting success takes considerable patience, commitment, and persistence. But it works, and it’s worth it.

Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and donors, the benefit dinner raised nearly $53,000 to support Alabama Possible’s work to partner with higher-education and faith-based organizations to strengthen awareness about poverty and its causes while advocating for fact-based policy decisions statewide.

Thank you again to our sponsors:

]]>http://alabamapossible.org/2014/11/rethink-alabama-benefit-dinner/feed/02014 Lifetime of Learning Conferencehttp://alabamapossible.org/2014/11/2014-lifetime-of-learning-conference/
http://alabamapossible.org/2014/11/2014-lifetime-of-learning-conference/#commentsWed, 12 Nov 2014 17:45:34 +0000http://alabamapossible.org/?p=8986On October 24th, 65 higher education and community partners from around the state convened for our Lifetime of Learning Conference at Faulkner University in Montgomery.

Dr. Stephen Monroe, Assistant Dean at the University of Mississippi, opened the conference with an interactive presentation on the university’s commitment to building sustainable systems for fighting poverty in North Mississippi through education. He highlighted two UM service-learning programs addressing child development needs, Jumpstart Pre-K and Horizons, and one program providing concerted capacity support to local organizations, College Corps. He warned attendees against flashy “drive-by volunteerism” and challenged all to look for long-term opportunities to invest in their communities.

During the morning and afternoon breakout sessions, professors and students shared successful experiences in enganging neighboring communities through service-learning. Professors Dr. Jill Wicknick, Dr. Meredith Tetloff, and Dr. Hollie C. Cost of the University of Montevallo spoke on creating tangible experiences for interdisciplinary instruction while providing valuable service to the community. Northwest-Shoals Community College students Tyler Jenkins, Markisha Spearman, and Erica Valdez spoke on how the classroom informed their experiences working with Blueprints College Access Initiative at Phil Campbell High School and how those experiences directed learning outcomes in the classroom.

Dr. Bill Muse, former president of Auburn University and current president of the National Issues Forum, addressed attendees during the afternoon keynote. He emphasized the democratic power of educational opportunity and the university’s responsibility to serve the greater community. He also referred to the biblical statement, “the poor will always be with you,” as a commandment for service and action, not apathy.

Choices. The work we do at Blueprints is all about creating opportunities and the ability for students to have choices: the choice in post-secondary education, the choice in career, and the choice in lifestyle.

At our second Blueprints session, The Value of Education, 25 freshmen at Wenonah High School, along with their UAB mentors, discussed the monetary value of college. In this session, participants fill out a hypothetical budget based on educational attainment, from high school diploma or lack thereof, to professional degree.

The mentors guide the students as they plan their hypothetical monthly expenses and intertwine mathematics, critical thinking, and problem solving. The student who is assigned the high school diploma is challenged to balance a monthly budget on just $1,191; meanwhile, the student with the bachelor’s degree is allocated $4,430 for their monthly budget.

I overheard one student, Arius, who had been assigned the budget of a high school dropout say, “I have no choice but to take the bus.”

That comment hit home for her and her classmates. Suddenly the student who envisioned their future home and life a certain way made the crucial connection that with education comes choices; the choice of what type of car to drive, the choice of what type of house to live in, and the choice of what the future looks like.

]]>http://alabamapossible.org/2014/10/choices/feed/0Blueprints has tips to make the most of your college fair experiencehttp://alabamapossible.org/2014/09/blueprints-has-tips-to-make-the-most-of-your-college-fair-experience/
http://alabamapossible.org/2014/09/blueprints-has-tips-to-make-the-most-of-your-college-fair-experience/#commentsThu, 11 Sep 2014 19:16:51 +0000http://alabamapossible.org/?p=8897College Fair Tips by Alabama Possible

After graduating form Auburn, I moved to Mississippi. What an adventure that turned out to be! But I was struggling with homesickness and missing the excitement of Birmingham’s revitalization! This is where I grew up. My family is here along with all those It’s A Wonderful Life showings at the Alabama Theater. I wanted to experience Birmingham as it is now and be a part of what it is going to be. Alabama is a wonderful state. We have a bright future.

You just started at Alabama Possible. What excites you about this work?

Alabama Possible is a credit to its name! Making things possible! Excuse the corniness, but we are getting our hands dirty, having dialogue, and supporting communities that need as many cheerleaders as they does movers and shakers. I will be coordinating Blueprints in Birmingham’s Woodlawn, Wenonah, and Ramsay schools along with Central High School in Tuscaloosa. I am ready to be in the classroom and to see the faces of the future of Alabama!

What is you favorite place in Birmingham?

Do I have to pick just one?! If I did have to choose, it would span Morris Avenue to 2nd Ave North. There is also something wonderfully nostalgic watching the trains move along the highline.

When I was in England, the place I was staying had a quaint library. I grabbed Joanne Harris’ Chocolat and Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends to read on the tube. I finished Chocolat! It was wonderful. But I had to leave behind a partly read Circle of Friends. It may have taken me three years but I bought it just the other night; I’m excited to finish it!